Book. • S S 

CopiglitN" 

COKSiGur CErosrr. 



THE 

FOUNDATION OF TRUE MORALITY 



The 

Foundation of True Morality 



BY 

REV. THOMAS SLATER, SJ. 

i' 

Author of " A Manual of Moral Theology 
for English-Speaking Countries," "Cases 
of Conscience," etc. 




New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PRINTERS TO THE I PUBLISHERS OF 

HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE | BENZICER's MAGAZINE 
1920 



JOANNES H. WRIGHT, SJ., 

Praep. Prov. Angl. 

August 27, 1919. 



®batat 

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D., 

Censor Librorum. 



Jttqjrimatttr. 

4- PATRICK J. HAYES, D.D., 

Archbishop of New York. 

New York, October 23, 1919. 



Copyright, 1920, by Benziger Brothers 



©CU571594 



PREFACE 



IN the modern world, progress in the art 
and science of living has not kept pace 
with progress in the other arts and sciences. 
Man does not lead a better and a happier 
life than he used to do. There are many 
indications that human conduct is getting 
worse, and that men are more discontented, 
more miserable than they used to be. One 
means of moral progress would be to pro- 
vide a sound and universally accepted code 
of ethics. The world would then have, at 
least, a moral standard by which human 
actions could be judged. It would go a 
long way toward forming a healthy public 
opinion on all moral questions. The Chris- 
tian religion furnishes the highest moral 
standard ever manifested to the world. 
Unfortunately, there are two fundamentally 

5 



6 



Preface 



different conceptions of Christian morality 
— the Catholic and the Protestant concep- 
tion. Perhaps if we put them side by side 
the truth will appear. With this object I 
have written the following pages. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter 1. Man a Moral Agent . 9 

Chapter II. Legalism .... 23 

Chapter III. Casuistry .... 37 

Chapter IV. Counsels and Precepts . 51 

Chapter V. Sin 65 

Chapter VI. Grace 77 



THE FOUNDATION OF 
TRUE MORALITY 



CHAPTER I 

MAN A MORAL AGENT 

IS man a moral or a merely physical agent? 
Are all man's thoughts, words, and 
actions determined by merely physical and 
necessary laws like those of electricity or 
steam? If man is a merely physical agent, 
then morality is only a department of phys- 
ics, and, without doubt, it will be an impor- 
tant department of physics. It is impor- 
tant for us to know the laws which govern 
the action of gravitation, or of electricity, or 
of steam, but it is still more important for 
us to know the laws which govern the action 
of men. If man is nothing but matter and 
force, by patient study we shall be able to 
predict his every thought, word, and action 

9 



10 Man a Moral Agent 

with as much certainty as we can predict the 
action of a steam-engine or of a motor-car. 
Such knowledge would be invaluable for 
governments, employers, and parents. It 
would not be less valuable for the private 
citizen, the employed, and for children still 
under parental sway. 

But is man a merely physical agent, a 
mere natural machine? Is man's action 
determined solely by the antecedents and 
conditions of action, so that if we knew 
them all we could predict infallibly what 
that action would be? Or is there some- 
thing in man which clearly distinguishes his 
action from that of merely physical causes? 

Man certainly is not an ordinary ma- 
chine. He has the wonderful gift of knowl- 
edge. He knows what will happen if he 
fastens down the safety-valve of a steam- 
engine, and what is likely to be the conse- 
quence if he directs his motor-car against a 
stone w^all. He has a further wonderful 
power if the common sense of mankind is a 



Man a Moral Agent 11 

safe witness to truth. Just as he has the 
power of knowing and planning different 
courses of action, so he has the complemen- 
tary power of choosing among different 
courses of action. He can fasten down the 
safety-valve of the steam-engine, if he 
chooses to do so, and he can drive his motor- 
car against a stone wall if he likes. In the 
department of morals man can know the 
difference between good and evil, and he can 
choose the good and avoid the evil. That 
is what I mean by a. moral agent. To be a 
moral agent man must know the difference 
between good and evil, and he must have 
the power of choosing freely between them. 
Both elements are necessary. A child who 
has not come to the age of reason lacks 
knowledge, and so, if he does wrong, we do 
not blame him, though we may correct him, 
for he can be improved by correction. If 
a monomaniac does wrong we do not blame 
him, because we know that he has lost the 
power of self-control. But if a grown up 



12 Man a Moral Agent 

man of sound mind does wrong, we blame 
him, and sometimes punish him, and we 
say he deserves it. 

The practical reason of the normal man 
himself not only tells him what is right or 
wrong, but when he has done right it ap- 
proves his conduct; when he has done wrong 
it condemns him. In other words, the nor- 
mal man has a conscience, and conscience 
is keenly sensible of right conduct, and of 
wrong conduct. If wrong was done through 
ignorance or mistake conscience is not dis- 
turbed, it says: I am not responsible, I 
could not help it. But if a man, know- 
ingly and willfully, does wrong, then his 
conscience condemns him, even when no- 
body else knows of his wrong-doing. He 
knows that he is responsible for the wrong, 
that he is the cause of it, and that he need 
not have done it, and should not have done 
it. 

All this shows that man is something 
quite different from an ordinary and neces- 



Man a Moral Agent 13 



sary physical agent, and so we give him a 
special name and call him a moral agent. 
As a moral agent man is endowed with 
knowledge of what is morally right and 
wrong, and he is endowed with freedom to 
choose between them. 

The chief Protestant reformers vehe- 
mently denied that after Adam's fall man 
had the power of free choice between good 
and evil. 

In his treatise, "The Bondage of the 
Will," Luther asserted that "in his actings 
toward God, in things pertaining to salva- 
tion or damnation, man has no free will, 
but is the captive, the subject, and the serv- 
ant, either of the will of God, or of the will 
of Satan." Again, "if we believe that God 
foreknows and predestinates everything 
. . . it follows that there can be no such 
thing as free will in man or angel, or any 
creature." ^ 

^ Quoted by E. H. Browne, The Thirty-nine Articles. 
Art. 10. 



14 Man a Moral Agent 



If this be so, Erasmus had asked in his 
book against Luther, who will strive to cor- 
rect his life ? "Nobody," answered Luther, 
in the same work, "The Bondage of the 
Will." "Nor can anybody do so. How- 
ever, the elect and good are corrected by the 
Holy Spirit. The rest will perish uncor- 
rected. If you say that the door is opened 
to wickedness by this teaching, I answer: 
So be it. Nevertheless, by this same teach- 
ing the door is opened to justice and the en- 
trance to heaven is gained." 

Calvin is, at least, equally emphatic. 
"The mind of man," he says, "is so wholly 
alienated from God, that it can conceive, 
desire, and effect nothing but what is im- 
pious, perverted, foul, impure, and flagi- 
tious; the heart is so steeped in the venom 
of sin that it can breathe forth nothing but 
fetid corruption." ^ The Anglican reform- 
ers were above all anxious to keep as many 
as possible within the limits of the national 

^ Institut. Lib. ii., c. v. 19. 



Man a Moral Agent 15 

Church and they were studiously moderate 
in their teaching on this important point of 
doctrine. Article 10, On Free Will, is 
worded thus: 

"The condition of man after the fall of 
Adam is such that he cannot turn and pre- 
pare himself by his own natural strength 
and good works to faith and calling upon 
God; wherefore, we have no power to do 
good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, 
without the grace of God by Christ prevent- 
ing us, that we may have a good will and 
working with us when we have that good 
will." 

Of course, there is no room for free will 
in the modern theories of the mechanical 
evolution of the universe. Man is and must 
be simply what the forces of nature and of 
society have made him. "It is almost be- 
yond dispute," says Mr. Bertrand Russell, 
in his "Philosophical Essays," "that man 
is the product of causes which had no pre- 
vision of the end they were achieving; that 



16 Man a Moral Agent 

his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, 
his loves and his behefs, are but the out- 
come of accidental collocations of atoms. 
In action, in desire, we must submit perpet- 
ually to a tyranny of outside forces." 

The Catholic Church has ever been the 
consistent and outspoken defender of hu- 
man liberty. For freedom of the will lies 
at the root of all other human liberties and 
is the necessary condition of them. In the 
early ages of the Faith she defended the 
freedom of the human will against the Man- 
icheans and Priscillianists, and she was not 
remiss in defending the same truth against 
the errors of Luther and Calvin. The Fa- 
thers of the Council of Trent pronounced 
the following anathema against them: 

'Tf any one says that the free will of man 
is lost or extinguished after Adam's sin, or 
that the substance is about a title only, 
and, indeed, a title without substance, 
and, in fine, a figment introduced into the 



Man a Moral Agent 17 

Church by Satan, let him be anathema." ^ 
Thomas H. Huxley opposed the doctrine 
of the freedom of the human will on the 
ground that it was contrary to the principle 
of causality. He says : 

"Whoever accepts the universality of the 
law of causation as a dogma of philosophy 
denies the existence of uncaused phenom- 
ena. And the essence of that which is im- 
properly called the free-will doctrine is that 
occasionally, at any rate, human volition is 
self-caused, that is to say, not caused at all ; 
for to cause oneself one must have anteceded 
oneself — which is, to say the least of it, diffi- 
cult to imagine." ^ 

Of course, the doctrine of free will does 
not imply that volition is ever self-caused, 
and it is not contrary to the law of causality. 
An act of volition is called free because it is 
the effect of a power of the human soul 

^Sess. vi. c. 5. 

^ "Essay on Science and Morals." 



18 Man a Moral Agent 

called the will, which is free. Just as when 
we see an external object the power of vi- 
sion has to be stimulated into action by a 
ray of light coming from the object to the 
retina of the eye, so before an act of voli- 
tion our will-power has to be stimulated into 
action by a thought. The will cannot act 
without the antecedent thought, but the doc- 
trine of free will asserts that ordinarily, at 
least, the will is not determined to any defi- 
nite action by the thought. The will can 
accept the thought or reject it or simply re- 
main passive, and in that wonderful power 
the essence of free will resides. 

The Catholic doctrine of free will is not 
opposed to the principle of causality nor is 
it opposed to the true doctrine on divine 
grace. 

Luther maintained that after man's fall 
the grace of God is absolutely necessary to 
enable man to think or do anything that is 
good. For man's nature was thoroughly 
corrupted by the fall. Henceforth, sin was 



Man a Moral Agent 19 



of his very nature, he cannot help commit- 
ting it, he commits it with every breath that 
he draws. The involuntary movements of 
appetite and concupiscence are sins: does 
not the Apostle say so? 

Natural benevolence is mere hypocrisy; 
for by nature man hates and must hate his 
neighbor. ''By nature I cannot utter a 
friendly word or make a friendly sign, and if 
I do it is only hypocrisy ; the heart, at least, 
remains full of venom." 

So deep rooted is this natural corrup- 
tion of man that it remains even in the just. 
When God gives His grace to man, and 
thereby makes him just, He only turns His 
eyes away from man's natural foulness and 
gives him His favor on account of the merits 
of Christ which He imputes to him.^ 

Man's will takes no part in the process of 
justification. "It is like a beast of burden; 
if God mounts it, it goes where God drives 

^ J. Verres, "Luther : An Historical Portrait," pp. 
127, 128. 



20 Man a Moral Agent 

it; if the devil, it goes where the devil drives 
it. It cannot choose its rider, but the rid- 
ers quarrel among themselves as to which 
shall get into the saddle." ^ Some recent 
writers have seen in such doctrines as these 
the cause of that amazing moral insensibil- 
ity of the German mind which displayed it- 
self during the great war. 

Very different from this is the teaching 
of the Catholic Church. She teaches that 
by the fall man was, indeed, deprived of 
sanctifying grace and of certain preternat- 
ural gifts by which man's lower appetite 
was restrained and kept within the bounds 
of reason so that he was not troubled even 
by its involuntary rebellion. Still man's 
nature was not entirely corrupted by original 
sin. It was still capable of good. We can, 
indeed, do nothing without God's help — in 
Him we live, move, and have our being. 
But the Catholic Church distinguishes two 

^ J. Verres, "Luther: An Historical Portrait," p. 
190. 



Man a Moral Agent 21 

sorts of divine help. There is the divine 
help of the natural order, by which God 
preserves, sustains, and cooperates with 
His creature in all his actions. This divine 
concursus is necessary for man, it is re- 
quired by his nature, which is essentially 
and always dependent on its Creator. But 
besides this natural help and cooperation 
of God, which is never wanting as long as 
God sustains His creature, there is the su- 
pernatural help of God's grace. This su- 
pernatural help is given freely and gratui- 
tously to man to enable him to attain the 
supernatural end of the intuitive vision of 
God to which God has freely and gratui- 
tously called him. Without God's super- 
natural grace man can do no good action of 
the supernatural order. He cannot take a 
single step toward his supernatural end. 
The Catholic Church further concedes that 
the grace of God is necessary to enable man 
to persevere and to keep God's command- 
ments for any long period of time. Man's 



22 Man a Moral Agent 

weakness in the face of continual tempta- 
tion is too great to permit of his avoiding 
sin for very long without the special help 
of God's grace. But still by his natural 
resources and with the natural help which 
God gives him, even fallen man can do eth- 
ically good actions and avoid sin for a time. 

This doctrine is truer, more consoling, 
and more helpful than that of the reform- 
ers. Historically, the doctrine of man's 
absolute and utter corruption has not tended 
to maintain a high standard of moral con- 
duct. 



CHAPTER II 



LEGALISM 

CATHOLICS are sometimes puzzled when 
they read contemptuous allusions to 
"legalism" made by non- Catholic writers on 
ethics. They feel that an attack is being 
made on the moral teaching of the Catholic 
Church, but they are often unaware of what 
the attack implies. After all there is a 
moral law, a right and wrong in morality, 
as there is in arithmetic. As arithmetic has 
its laws so has morality. If it is important 
to keep the laws of arithmetic, much more 
important is it to keep the laws of morality. 
If there are moral laws there is a moral law- 
giver, and why should the precepts and com- 
mands of the moral lawgiver be sneered at, 
and those who think that they should be 
obeyed treated with contempt? 

23 



24 



Legalism 



To show more clearly the question at is- 
sue between Catholics and non-Catholics, I 
will quote a recent and very moderate writer 
on ethics. Mr. J. MacCunn, in 1903, pub- 
lished a little book entitled "The Making 
of Character," in the Cambridge series for 
schools and training colleges. In that book 
occurs the following passage: 

"These difficulties bring us to a parting 
of the ways. Once the ineffectual general- 
ity of precepts has made itself felt, two 
courses lie open. One is to see in this fact 
a final proof that a morality of precept is 
unequal to the demands of life, and to turn 
from it to a morality that centers its hopes 
in the training of individual judgment. 
The second is to refuse to give up the moral- 
ity of precept without a struggle, and to set 
resolutely to work to make it adequate to 
those facts of concrete moral experience by 
which the morality of code is tested and 
found wanting. It is the adoption of the 
second course that leads to the third phase 



Legalism 25 

of the morality of precept, that supreme ef- 
fort to make moral dogmas adequate to life, 
which gives rise to casuistry." ^ 

There, certainly, is the parting of the 
ways. The one is the Protestant attitude 
toward all codes of morality, including the 
decalogue, the other is the Catholic attitude. 
Which is right ? 

To understand the Protectant attitude we 
must go back to Luther and his Commen- 
taries on St. Paul. After St. Paul had con- 
verted the Galatians to the faith of Christ, 
some false teachers, who were Jews, came to 
them and tried to persuade them to join cir- 
cumcision and the observance of the cere- 
monies of the Mosaic law with the faith of 
Christ. In his Epistle to the Galatians St. 
Paul tells them that such a course is wrong. 

"But now after that you have known 
God, or rather are known by God, how turn 
you again to the weak and needy elements 
which you desire to serve again? You ob- 

^ Loc. cit., p. 152. 



26 



Legalism 



serve days and months and times and years." 
But we are free "with the freedom where- 
with Christ has made us free. Stand fast 
and be not held again under the yoke of 
bondage. Behold I, Paul, tell you that if 
you be circumcised Christ shall profit you 
nothing. . . . You are made void of Christ, 
you who are justified in the law, you are 
fallen from grace. For in Christ Jesus 
neither circumcision availeth any thing nor 
uncircumcision, but faith that worketh by 
charity." ^ 

Luther professed a special predilection for 
the Epistle to the Galatians. He said he 
took it to him for his spouse, as he had done 
Catharine von Bora. There and in the 
Epistle to the Romans he saw the doctrine 
of justification by faith alone, and the un- 
compromising condemnation of the law and 
legalism. It will be well to quote him at 
some length on this latter point. 

According to Luther there is a direct op- 

^ Gal. iv. V. 



Legalism 



27 



position between the law. and the Gospel, 
an opposition which, as he proudly boasts, 
he was the first to discover. "The Gospel 
does not preach what we must do or omit, 
but bids us open our hands to receive gifts, 
and says: Behold, dear man, this is what 
God has done for thee, for thy sake He has 
made His Son assume human nature. This 
believe and accept, and thou shalt be saved. 
The Gospel only shows us the gifts of God, 
not what we have to give to God, or to do 
for Him, as is the wont of the law." "Law 
is what we have to do, the Gospel what God 
is willing to give. The former we cannot 
fulfill, the latter we receive and apprehend 
by faith." "The Gospel is good tidings, 
it is not a sermon on works of ours. He 
who says that the Gospel demands works, 
necessary for salvation, is a liar." "That 
the law should have been abolished, so that 
it can no longer condemn those that believe, 
was just as necessary, as that it should have 
been given." "The law and the Gospel are 



28 



Legalism 



two quite contrary things, which cannot be 
in harmony with each other by the side of 
each other." "He who knows how to dis- 
tinguish between the law and the Gospel 
may thank God and consider himself a 
theologian." "When the conscience is 
terror-stricken on account of the law, and 
struggles with the judgment of God, do not 
consult reason or the law, act exactly as if 
thou hadst never heard of the law of God. 
Answer: There is a time to live and a time 
to die ; there is a time to hear the law and a 
time to despise the law. Let the law be off 
and let the Gospel come." "If you do not 
ignore the law, if you are not sure in your 
heart that there is no law, that there is no 
wrath of God, but only grace and mercy 
through Christ, you cannot be saved." "If 
you do not send away Moses with his law, 
and in those tremblings and terrors lay hold 
of Christ, who has suffered for your sins, it 
is all over with your salvation." "The 
decalogue has no right to accuse and to ter- 



Legalism 



29 



rify the conscience, in which Christ reigns 
through grace, for through Christ those laws 
have become antiquated." 

Luther had a positive hatred for Moses 
and for his law. "If you are prudent," he 
says, "send that stammering and stuttering 
Moses with his law far away from you, and 
be not influenced by his terrific threats. 
Look upon him with suspicion, as upon a 
heretic, excommunicated, damned, worse 
than the Pope and the devil." 

"I will not have Moses and his law, for 
he is the enemy of the Lord Christ. We 
must put away the thoughts and disputes 
about the law, whenever the conscience be- 
comes terrified and feels God's anger 
against sin. Instead of that it will be bet- 
ter to sing, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to be 
merry in spite of the devil." "No greater 
insult can be offered to Christ than to sup- 
pose that He has come to give command- 
ments, to make a sort of Moses of Him." 
"Only the mad and blind Papists do such a 



30 



Legalism 



thing." "Christ's work consists in this: to 
fulfill the law for us, not to give laws to us, 
and to redeem us. The devil makes of 
Christ a mere Moses." ^ 

By the law in these passages Luther did 
not mean merely the ceremonial and judicial 
precepts of the Old Dispensation ; he meant 
especially the moral precepts of the natural 
law contained in the ten commandments. 
Those moral precepts were the only portion 
of the Mosaic law which the Catholic Church 
taught had been ratified and promulgated 
anew by Jesus Christ. The violation of 
them alone could cause the terrible stings 
of conscience for which Luther was so anx- 
ious to find a remedy. Moreover, he in ex- 
press terms repudiated the decalogue, the 
ten commandments in their entirety. Bad 
desires, if willfully consented to, are cer- 
tainly sins against the natural law, and 
against the express teaching of Christ, Our 

^ J. Verres, "Luther : An Historical . Portrait," p. 
130 ff. 



Legalism 



31 



Lord/ This is what Luther says about 
them. "For instance, the commandment — 
Thou shalt have no bad desires — proves that 
we are all sinners, and no man can be with- 
out bad desires, let him do whatever he likes. 
From this he learns to distrust himself and 
to look elsewhere for help to be freed from 
bad desires, and to fulfill through some one 
else the law which he himself is incapable 
of fulfilling. As soon as man begins to 
learn and to feel from the laws of God his 
own incapacity he becomes thoroughly hum- 
ble and annihilated in his own eyes." ^ 

The impossibility of observing the moral 
law, and the consequent necessity of com- 
mitting sin, gives its supreme importance 
to Luther's doctrine of justification by faith 
alone. In his work on the "Babylonian 
Captivity," he writes: 

"You see how rich the Christian is, even 

1 Matt. V. 28. 

- J. Verres, "Luther : An Historical Portrait," p. 
136. 



32 



Legalism 



if he wishes he cannot lose his salvation on 
account of the greatest sins, unless he re- 
fuses to believe. Apart from unbelief, no 
sins can damn him. If faith returns to the 
promises made by God to the baptized Chris- 
tian, or if it does not depart from them in 
an instant, all sins are blotted out by it or 
rather by the divine veracity; for if you con- 
fess God and abandon yourself to His prom- 
ises with confidence He cannot deny Him- 
self." ' 

In a famous letter to Melancthon, Luther 
wrote: "Sin, and sin bravely, but believe 
and rejoice still more bravely in Christ, the 
Conqueror of sin, of death, and of the world. 
As long as we are here below there must be 
sin. It is sufficient for us to acknowledge 
the Lamb who bears the sins of the world; 
then sin will not be able to separate us from 
Him even if we were unchaste a thousand 
times a day or committed a thousand mur- 
ders." ' 

^ Pagnier, Luther et TAllemagne, p. 75. 
- Pagnier, loc. cit. p. 76. 



Legalism 



33 



These extracts from Luther's works show 
quite plainly what was his attitude toward 
the moral law. A recent German writer, 
Loofs, says very truly that "in the opposition 
between the law and the Gospel lies the chief 
difference between the Lutheran and the 
Catholic conception of Christianity." The 
Lutheran doctrine tended to divorce moral- 
ity from religion and make it a matter be- 
longing exclusively to the conscience of the 
individual. The tendency was increased by 
the influence of the Kantian philosophy, 
which sneered at the heteronomy of Catholic 
morality and proclaimed the autonomy of 
the human reason in the sphere of morals. 
Good men see and lament the moral chaos 
of the modern world. Outside the Catholic 
Church there are few practical principles of 
conduct on which even Christians are 
agreed. As against the morality of com- 
mandments and codes, Mr. MacCunn insists 
on the cultivation of a sound moral judg- 
ment. A sound moral judgment, he says, 



34 



Legalism 



has three elements. It involves character, 
deliberation, and knowledge. There must 
be knowledge of means and ends, good ends. 
But what are good ends, and what are we 
to do when there is a conflict between them, 
as not unfrequently happens? We may 
not have recourse to casuistry, but, says Mr. 
MacCunn, "there is little safety if there be 
not in the mind a well-compacted and habit- 
ually-cherished ideal with which each iso- 
lated end that claims adoption may be con- 
fronted." ^ But where are we to get such 
an ideal? Alas, as we advance from youth 
to age we learn to reject many ideals that 
we once entertained. There are many disil- 
lusionments in life. But cannot we start 
life with a good ideal, with the true ideal 
which every man should place before him- 
self all through life? "They are found," 
says Mr. MacCunn, "in those conceptions 
of the supreme End of life, which philosophy 
has been giving to the world since the days 

1 Op. cit. p. 188, 



Legalism 



35 



of Socrates. They are diverse as the phi- 
losophies that have devised them:? duty, per- 
fection, greatest happiness, greatest blessed- 
ness, self-realization and the rest." ^ 

But will any of these ideals do, are they 
all equally good and equally true though 
diverse and different? Yes, for practical 
purposes, is apparently the answer of Mr. 
MacCunn. He says: "If we would know 
that an end is good, we must be able to sat- 
isfy ourselves that it is in harmony with a 
settled and coherent ideal of life." " 

Modern skepticism has invaded the 
sphere not only of speculative truth but of 
morality also. The Catholic still clings to 
Jesus Christ and His teaching. He con- 
demns Pharisaic legalism, the exaggerated 
worship of the law coupled with its merely 
external observance. But he maintains 
that Christ was a true lawgiver inasmuch as 
He enacted anew the natural precepts con- 

1 Op. cit. p. 194. 

2 Op. cit. p. 188. 



36 



Legalism 



tained in the law of Moses. The cere- 
monial and judicial precepts of the Old Law 
have ceased to bind, as St. Paul taught the 
Romans and the Galatians; the moral pre- 
cepts of the decalogue were expressly re- 
affirmed by Christ. Love is indeed the great 
commandment which sums up the law and 
the prophets, but love manifests itself in 
obedience — // you love Me keep My com- 
mandments — li thou wilt enter into life 
keep the commandments. And if any 
doubt were possible as to which command- 
ments He meant, we know from His own 
divine lips that He meant those of the deca- 
logue — ''Thou shalt do no murder. Thou 
shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not 
steal, thou shalt not bear false witness. 
Honor thy father and thy mother. And: 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." ^ 

1 Matt. xix. 18, 19. 



CHAPTER III 



CASUISTRY 

IN his translation of "The German War 
Book," Professor J. H. Morgan makes 
such reflections as the following: "It will 
be obvious that the German staff are noth- 
ing if not c-asuists." ^ "This represents 
'The German War Book' in its most dis- 
agreeable light, and is casuistry of the worst 
kind." ^ It is taken for granted that no 
more severe condemnation of immoral rea- 
soning could be uttered than to say that it 
is easuistical. Some justification of this 
opprobrious meaning attached to casuistry 
is furnished by the Gospel. The condem- 
nation of the Pharisees by Our Lord could 
hardly be more severe, and one reason for 

1 P. 3. 

2 P. 85, note. 

37 



38 



Casuistry 



that condemnation was their casuistry. 
"Woe to you, blind guides, that say: Who- 
soever shall swear by the temple, it is noth- 
ing; but he that shall swear by the gold of 
the temple is a debtor. Ye foolish and 
blind; for whether is greater, the gold or 
the temple that sanctifieth the gold? . . . 
W^oe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites ; because you tithe mint and anise and 
cummin, and have left the weightier things 
of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. 
These things you ought to have done find 
not to leave those undone." ^ 

There have been lax casuists in the Cath- 
olic Church who deserved severe condemna- 
tion of this kind, as we learn from the de- 
crees of Alexander VII, Innocent XI, and 
Alexander VIII. But the rooted dislike of 
non-Catholic writers to casuistry is not ac- 
counted for merely by its abuses. They 
seem to condemn casuistry in itself. Cath- 
olics find it difficult to understand this atti- 

^ Matt, xxiii. 16-23. 



Casuistry 



39 



tude of non-Catholics toward casuistry. 
They think it obvious that very little expe- 
rience of life shows that sometimes it is diffi- 
cult to decide what is the right and what 
the wrong course of action in particular cir- 
cumstances. What is more natural than 
for one who wishes to do right to consult 
some one who has made a special study of 
morality? 

In order to understand this divergence of 
view we must go back to Luther and the 
Protestant Reformation. Luther scornfully 
rejected the Catholic doctrine that the 
Church is the divinely appointed teacher of 
faith and morals. He substituted the Bible 
for the Church, and declared that a believ- 
ing Christian infallibly interpreted the Bible 
for himself. "They lie," he says, "who 
maintain that the Pope is the judge of the 
Scriptures. Pardon, Squire Pope, I say: 
he who has faith is a spiritual man, and 
judges of all things, and is judged by no- 
body. And if a simple miller's girl, nay 



40 



Casuistry- 



Si child nine years old, has faith and judges 
according to the Gospel, the Pope owes obe- 
dience and ought to throw himself at their 
feet, if he means to be a genuine Christian. 
And this is likewise the duty of all. Univer- 
sities, and learned men and sophists." ^ 

A recent writer. Otto Ritschl, says that 
''when the question is asked whether a lie 
is permissible to save a persecuted person, 
we still care too little for 'what the con- 
science of the person concerned decides and 
what he feels to be quite definitely his duty.' 
We still fail, he thinks, 'to perceive that one's 
own conscience is the ultimate judge of what 
is morally good and bad, and that the judg- 
ment of conscience frequently does not co- 
incide with the generally received code of 
morahty.' " ^ 

According to Protestant principles then 
a believing Christian gets his ideal from the 

^ J. Verres, "Luther: An Historical Portrait," p. 
120. 

^ Mausbach, "Catholic Moral Teaching," p. 87. 



Casuistry 



41 



Bible, but that ideal is applied to conduct 
and to the particular actions of everyday life 
by the conscience of each one. The indi- 
vidual conscience is the ultimate judge of 
right and wrong, and it is worse than im- 
pertinent intrusion for any one else, however 
learned he may be, to trespass within those 
sacred precincts. If this be the main prin- 
ciple of Christian morals, there is obviously 
no room for the casuist and for casuistry. 
We see that what history has taught us was 
inevitable. In the Lutheran, Calvinistic, 
and Anglican sects casuistry survived for 
some time, but now it seems to have dis- 
appeared almost entirely. Non-Catholic 
writers on Christian ethics confine them- 
selves to generalities and ideals without 
venturing to descend to the ordinary actions 
of everyday life. In consequence their 
teaching to a great extent is impractical. 
Politics, law, international relations, busi- 
ness, all lie outside the sphere of morality, 
and the inner life of the individual is a 



42 



Casuistry 



sanctuary where no other may intrude. 

This result is intensified by the Protestant 
view of legahsm and Christian liberty. Ac- 
cording to Protestant principles the behev- 
er's conscience is under the immediate guid- 
ance of the Holy Spirit, and is not fettered 
by commandments and laws. It requires 
no external guidance in its moral life and it 
will not tolerate dictation. It instinctively 
repudiates any attempt to fetter, by casuis- 
tical decisions, the freedom which Christ 
gave us. 

Another reason which makes Protestant 
ethical teaching hopelessly at variance with 
everyday morality is its refusal to recognize 
the Gospel distinction between counsels and 
precepts. Not everything in the Gospel is 
intended for everybody. Our Lord occa- 
sionally proposed an exalted course of moral 
conduct which he knew was above the moral 
strength of many. He said: "All men 
take not this word, but they to whom it is 



Casuistry 



43 



given." ^ And yet Protestants refuse to 
admit that there are counsels of perfection 
in the Gospel. They see nothing there but 
the preceptive will of God. 

The effect of the Lutheran doctrine of 
justification by faith alone has been to re- 
move the stress laid by the Catholic Church 
on good actions. It is true that Luther 
taught that good works would be the result 
of justification by faith, just as a good tree 
produces good fruit. Still he knew by his 
own experience that this was not uniformly 
the case, and he considered it no small ad- 
vantage of his doctrine that good and bad 
works were thrust into the background by 
his fundamental theory of justification. As 
long as faith remained, works, whether good 
or bad, were of comparatively small account. 
As long as a Christian man clung to his 
ideal, was affable and generous, his individ- 
ual actions ought not to be too closely scru- 
tinized either by himself or by others. 

^ Matt. xix. 11. 



44 



Casuistry 



Very different from this is the Catholic 
attitude toward casuistry. As Professor 
R. M. Wenlez remarks: "Quite obviously, 
the two conceptions proceed from antago- 
nistic theories of the nature of the Christian 
religion as a whole." ^ 

The Catholic has very definite ideas about 
moral law. He does not look upon the 
moral law as a collection of more or less 
arbitrary precepts. He sees in it the ex- 
pression of the necessary relations which 
exist among human beings. Those rela- 
tions follow from the nature of things and 
they will continue to exist as long as human 
nature exists. They could not be changed 
even by God Himself, because they ulti- 
mately depend on the essence of God Him- 
self. Luther thought that an action is right 
because it is accepted as right by God. The 
Catholic holds that an action is right be- 
cause it agrees with the right order which 

^ Hastings' "Encyclopaedia of Religion," s. v. Cas- 
uistry. 



Casuistry 



45 



follows from the nature of persons and 
things, and which God willed when He cre- 
ated them. Because parents are parents 
and children their offspring, therefore it is 
right for children to honor their parents. 
Because human beings are what they are, 
it is wrong for one to kill another, to steal 
what belongs to him, or to lie. 

Such precepts as Thou shall not kill are 
general principles which are to be obeyed in 
ordinary circumstances. But circumstances 
change cases and rules. In a just war, in 
order to defend one's country and one's 
rights from unjust attack, one may kill the 
enemy. If it is the only means of saving 
one's own life one may kill an unjust ag- 
gressor in self-defense. The criminal for- 
feits his life by serious crime and may be 
put to death by public authority. Those 
are well recognized exceptions to the general 
rule, they are the outcome of altered rela- 
tions which arise from altered circumstances. 
Right reason affirms that in a conflict of 



46 



Casuistry 



rights, the right of the innocent should pre- 
vail over the right of the guilty who pro- 
voked the conflict. There may be other 
cases where it is not so clear whether the 
right to life has been lost or not. The 
casuist lays down what is certain and then 
proceeds to discuss the doubtful cases. In 
doing this the ordinary casuist does not 
strive to reduce the moral law to a minimum, 
nor does he seek to throw off its yoke. 
There may have been some casuists who 
yielded to such unworthy motives. Not all 
doctors or scientific men are honest. But 
the ordinary casuist tries only to discover 
what is right or wrong in the nature of things 
and what right reason prescribes. In his 
investigations he questions nature and tries 
to get at nature's verdict, not less than the 
man of science. 

The Catholic maintains that the moral 
law governs all man's activity. The safety 
of the race as well as of the individual de- 
pends on the right exercise of marital rela- 



Casuistry 



47 



tions. The casuist, therefore, treats of 
what is right and what is wrong in those re- 
lations as in all others connected with hu- 
man life. He does not wallow in such sub- 
jects as one might expect he would from 
the horror with which Harnack upbraids 
casuists for their practice. It is, at least, 
as much the duty of the moralist to inves- 
tigate what is right and wrong in such mat- 
ters as for the doctor or the scientist. The 
books of the casuist are not meant for inno- 
cent boys and maidens, they are technical 
works specially intended for the confessor 
and parish priest. Mr. MacCunn, in his 
book, ''The Making of Character," thinks 
that casuists err in tr}dng to make life con- 
form to their system, instead of making their 
system conform to life. But what if the 
casuists' system is merely the moral law, 
the objective standard to which all human 
action should conform? Is it a mistake to 
maintain the absolute supremacy of the 
moral law? 



48 



Casuistry 



The same writer thinks that casuists at- 
tempt the impossible when they strive to 
solve all sorts of imaginary or real cases. 
The complexity of life, he thinks, baffles 
even the casuist. Mr. MacCunn is mis- 
taken in thinking that this is the aim of the 
casuist. The casuist is well aware of the 
infinite complexity of human life. What 
the casuist has chiefly in view is the train- 
ing of the student, so that he may become 
expert in perceiving at a glance what prin- 
ciples are applicable to the solution of any 
particular case, and so that his judgment 
may be relied on to apply those principles 
correctly. 

The same writer also thinks that the 
casuist errs in trying to maintain his system 
of morals in spite of the fact that the world 
has outgrown the system. But what if the 
system of the Catholic moralist is not his 
own or any other human system? What if 
it is the will of God Himself made known to 
man and taught by Jesus Christ? ''Heaven 



Casuistry 



49 



and earth shall pass away, but My word shall 
not pass away." The world has not yet 
risen to the height of Christian morality, 
much less transcended it. 



CHAPTER IV 



COUNSELS AND PRECEPTS 

LUTHER rejected the distinction between 
the counsels and precepts of the Gospel 
with scorn. He says: "This distinction 
only shows that those who make it do not 
know what the Gospel is. What the Papists 
call counsels are, in fact, precepts, for in- 
stance the words of Our Lord: ^ If one 
strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him 
also the other; If a man will contend with 
thee in judgment and take away thy coat, 
let go thy cloak also unto him; Whosoever 
will force thee one mile, go with him other 
two. . . . Love your enemies; do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them that 
persecute and calumniate you." ^ 

^J. Verres, "Luther: An Historical Portrait," p. 
153. 

2 Matt. V. 39-44. 

51 



52 Counsels and Precepts 

It was not merely his necessary opposi- 
tion to vows of religion which he had broken 
that led him to adopt this attitude toward 
counsels in general. He was forced into it 
by his fundamental doctrine of justification 
by faith alone, and his consequent dispar- 
agement of good works. If faith alone 
saves us, good works fall into the back- 
ground, and distinctions between them, of 
good and better, of precept and supereroga- 
tion, become migratory. As Luther himself 
says: "In this faith all works are equal 
and one is the same as another; all differ- 
ence vanishes between works, whether they 
be great, small, short, long, many or few. 
For the works are not pleasing for their own 
sake, but for the sake of the faith, which 
alone and without distinction is present, 
works, and lives in each and every deed, no 
matter how many and how various they may 
be, just as all the members receive life from 
the head, and move and have their name; 



Counsels and Precepts 53 

and without the head no limb can live, move, 
or have a name." ^ 

In this Luther has been followed by al- 
most all Protestant writers. "The Prot- 
estant theologians," says J. 0. Hannay, "de- 
nied that there was any choice given to man 
between a higher and a lower kind of Chris- 
tian life. The fundamental command to 
love the Lord with all the heart was binding 
upon all, and as there was no possibility 
of doing more than this so every failure to 
attain to the fullness of such love was sin." ^ 

They assert that the Catholic doctrine of 
good works leads to the division of Chris- 
tian morality into two stories, the lower one 
of the commandments and the higher of the 
counsels. 

Whether the Catholic doctrine does this 
or not we shall see just now, but in the 
meantime let us not omit to notice what the 

1 Mausbach, "Catholic Moral Teaching," p. 251. 
^ Hastings' "Encyclopaedia of Religion," iv. 204. 



54 Counsels and Precepts 

Protestant doctrine implies. It implies 
that nothing short of the most absolute and 
most perfect love will suffice to fulfill the 
commandment. Not only is every act 
against charity sinful, but anything short of 
the most perfect charity possible is sinful 
also. In all our actions we are bound un- 
der pain of sin to act with the highest degree 
possible of perfect love. We are never 
permitted to relax our efforts. What is less 
good than might have been achieved is sin- 
ful. The sphere of what is permissible van- 
ishes, every action is either the best pos- 
sible or it is sinful. Such moral perfection 
is for the blessed in heaven, it is not pos- 
sible for men on earth. It necessarily leads 
to that other Lutheran doctrine, that it is 
not possible to keep God's commandments, 
we all sin necessarily by every breath we 
draw. It also leads to that practical di- 
vorce of religion from everyday life which is 
so characteristic of modern Christianity. 



Counsels and Precepts 55 

Of course Probabilism becomes a total per- 
version of Christianity in the light of this 
Protestant doctrine. 

The Catholic doctrine about counsels of 
perfection is professedly based on Holy 
Scripture. According to that doctrine 
Christian perfection is not proposed as the 
aim of a favored class, it is proposed to all. 
"Be you therefore perfect as your heavenly 
Father is perfect," were words addressed by 
Our Lord to all His followers. The holi- 
ness of God Himself was proposed to them 
as their ideal of moral conduct, not that they 
could hope to equal the infinite perfection 
of God, but they were bidden to practice all 
kinds of virtue and never to stop in their 
pursuit of greater and higher attainment. 
This Christian moral perfection consists in 
charity, love of God and our neighbor. 
There is no greater or higher perfection than 
what is commanded in the words: "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole 



56 Counsels and Precepts 

heart and with thy whole soul and with thy 
whole mind. Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself." ^ 

And this command was not given to a 
select few, it was given to all without excep- 
tion. Catholic morality is not divided into 
two stories, a lower story of the command- 
ments and a higher of the counsels. It is 
true that besides the commandments Cath- 
olics recognize in the Gospel counsels also. 
The Christian scheme of life does not con- 
sist in one dead level of uniformity. It 
does not consist in an impossible ideal, be- 
low which all is sin and corruption. Be- 
tween the highest virtue attainable by hu- 
man nature and sin there is a large field of 
infinitely varied perfection where all who 
are saved find a place, though perhaps no 
two are equal. As St. Francis of Sales 
says: 

"In counsels there are various degrees of 
perfection. To lend to such poor people 

^ Matt. xxii. 37. 



Counsels and Precepts 57 

as are not in extreme want is the first degree 
of the counsel of alms-deeds" — to lend or 
give to such as are in extreme want is, of 
course, a commandment not a counsel — "to 
give it them is a degree higher; higher still 
to give all, but the highest is to give oneself, 
dedicating our person to their service. . . . 
Virtues have then a certain sphere of per- 
fection, and commonly we are not obliged 
to practice them to the height of their excel- 
lence. It is sufficient to go so far in the 
practice of them as really to enter upon 
them. But to go farther, and to advance 
in perfection, is a counsel, as the acts of 
heroic virtues are not ordinarily com- 
manded, but counseled only. And if upon 
some occasion we find ourselves obliged to 
exercise them, it is by reason of some rare 
and extraordinary occurrence, which makes 
them necessary for the preservation of God's 

99 1 

grace. 

So that in all the virtues and in all the 

^ *Treatise on the Love of God," Book viii., c. 9. 



58 Counsels and Precepts 

commandments there are certain essential 
elements, a certain minimum of observance, 
without which the virtue does not exist and 
the commandment is not fulfilled. This is 
true even with regard to divine charity it- 
self, the queen of all the virtues, the first 
and greatest of the commandments. There 
is a certain minimum without which divine 
charity does not exist, but rising above that 
minimum there is an infinity of degrees of 
perfection, which, step by step, leads up to- 
ward the infinite perfection of God Him- 
self. To quote St. Francis of Sales again: 
"Though there are so many degrees of love 
amongst true lovers, yet is there but one 
commandment of love, which universally 
and equally obliges every one, with an ex- 
actly like and entirely equal obligation, 
though it be observed differently, and with 
an infinite variety of perfection; there be- 
ing perhaps no souls on earth, as there are 
no angels in heaven, who are perfectly equal 
to one another in their love. ... It is a 



Counsels and Precepts 59 

love which must prevail over all our loves, 
'and reign over all our passions. And this 
is what God requires of us — that among all 
our loves His be the dearest, holding the 
first place in our hearts ; the warmest, occu- 
pying our whole soul ; the most general, em- 
ploying all our powers; the highest, filling 
our whole spirit ; and the strongest, exercis- 
ing all our strength and vigor. And inas- 
much as by this we choose and elect God 
for the sovereign object of our soul, it is a 
love of sovereign election, or an election of 
sovereign love." ^ 

Catholic doctrine, then, does not make 
two stories of Christian morality; there is 
only one morality for all Christians. The 
commandments merge into counsels, and 
counsels in certain cases become command- 
ments. Nobody can practice all the coun- 
sels, all should practice some, says St. Fran- 
cis of Sales. One who should limit him- 
self to the bare performance of what is 

^ "Treatise on the Love of God," Book x., c. 6. 



60 Counsels and Precepts 

commanded would inevitably fall short of 
fulfilling the commandments. These prin- 
ciples help us to understand the teaching 
of Our Lord and St. Paul. 

In the first portion of the Sermon on the 
Mount, which we have in the fifth chapter of 
St. Matthew's Gospel, Our Lord lays down 
the broad principles of Christian perfection. 
That perfection requires the observance of 
both commandments and counsels, but Our 
Lord does not distinguish between them. 
The first beatitude comprises both command- 
ment and counsel, inasmuch as a certain 
degree of poverty of spirit or detachment 
from riches is necessary for salvation, while 
in its higher degrees it is a counsel only. 
It is a matter of precept not to lose patience 
with those who revile and persecute us, while 
it is a counsel of perfection to be glad and 
rejoice at such trials. Not to take an un- 
necessary oath is a matter of precept, to be 
content in our speech with Yea, Yea; No, 
No, is, in general, a matter of counsel. Not 



Counsels and Precepts 61 

to resist evil, and to turn the other cheek 
to the smiter is a matter of precept in so 
far as it is forbidden to seek private re- 
venge for wrongs done to us, to forego the 
right of self-defense, or the right to have an 
injury punished by lawful authority is a 
matter of counsel, unless some other con- 
sideration requires that punishment should 
be exacted. Reprisals are not morally 
wrong, and the public authority, in the exe- 
cution of its duty to its subjects, may be 
compelled to have recourse to them. To 
hate one's enemy is wrong and contrary to 
charity, to show special love for him is a 
matter of counsel. Luther and Protestant 
writers generally interpret all these texts 
as so many positive commands, but the only 
result is to remove Christian morality far 
from the sphere of practical human life. 

The Sermon on the Mount was addressed 
to a great concourse of people as well as to 
the intimate disciples of Our Lord. It con- 
tained practical lessons of conduct for all. 



62 Counsels and Precepts 

The most spiritual and the worldly minded 
alike could draw instruction from it suit- 
able to the wants of their souls. Those who 
were prepared to give themselves wholly 
and entirely to God with the utmost gener- 
osity, as well as those who were content to 
save their souls, could take its lessons and 
apply them to their own special needs. The 
distinction between precepts and counsels 
was implicit and implied. On the other 
hand, in the nineteenth chapter of St. Mat- 
thew this distinction is plainly expressed. 
The young man asked what he was to do to 
have life everlasting, to save his soul. If 
thou wouldst enter into life, and save thy 
soul, keep the commandments, said Our 
Lord. The young man had kept them all 
from youth upward, and he asked if there 
was anything else, better, more perfect, that 
he could do. "And Jesus saith to him: 
If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou 
hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt 



Counsels and Precepts 63 

have treasure in heaven." ^ The words 
could hardly be plainer. In Christian 
morality there is something higher and bet- 
ter than merely keeping the commandments, 
though it is suflBcient to keep the command- 
ments in order to save one's soul. That 
higher and better course is voluntary pov- 
erty, which is not a commandment, not even 
for the young man — 'Tf thou wilt be per- 
fect," says Our Lord. It is a counsel of 
perfection, not because it makes those who 
embrace it perfect in charity, but because 
it removes out of their path, the love of 
riches, the greatest obstacle to whole- 
hearted love of God. The evangehcal coun- 
sels, then, do not form a second story in the 
edifice of Christian morality, they require 
and pre-suppose the observance of the com- 
mandments, nor do they make those who 
embrace them perfect ; they only place them 
in a state of life which makes the acquire- 
1 Matt. xix. 21. 



64 Counsels and Precepts 

ment of perfection comparatively easy. 
That is why they are called counsels of per- 
fection. 

Similarly with regard to the counsel of 
virginity. The disciples had said, If a man 
cannot have a divorce from his wife, it is 
expedient not to marry. "All men take 
not this word," was the answer, "but they 
to whom it is given. ... He that can take, 
let him take it." ^ Obviously, to marry is 
good, God has joined husband and wife to- 
gether, but there is a higher and a better 
calling for such as feel that they have the 
necessary grace ; that higher and better call- 
ing is to observe perfect and perpetual chas- 
tity for the love of God. 

St. Paul obviously understood it so: 
"Both he that giveth his virgin in marriage 
doth well, and he that giveth her not doth 
better." ' 

1 Matt. xix. 11, 12. 

2 1 Cor. vii. 38. 



CHAPTER V 



sm 

SIN is a voluntary transgression of the 
moral law. Voluntariness is of the 
very essence of sin. Anything that pre- 
vents an act being voluntary prevents it be- 
ing sinful. A motor-car runs over a 
drunken man lying in the middle of a lonely 
road at night. The driver could not see 
him, he had no reason to suspect that he 
was there. The act was purely involun- 
tary. A little child runs in front of his car 
while driving along the street. The driver 
saw the danger but could not pull up in 
time. The child was knocked down, but 
again the act on the part of the driver was 
purely involuntary. In both cases common 
sense acquits the driver of all blame; there 

is no reason why the most sensitive con- 
es 



66 



Sin 



science should be troubled at the mishap. 

And so if man is not free, if his every 
action is determined by the antecedent con- 
ditions so that it necessarily follows from 
them, then man cannot commit sin. He 
may be dangerous and may have to be put 
out of the way or shut up like a mad dog, 
but if he is not free he cannot help doing 
what he does, and he is not responsible for 
it. If he does wrong it is his misfortune, 
not his fault. 

Luther denied free will and consequently 
he should have denied in man the possibil- 
ity of sin. He did not do that, but his de- 
nial of free will deeply colored his view of 
sin. According to Luther, the fall of our 
first parents so entirely corrupted man that 
now it is his nature to sin, he cannot help 
it. Sin is no longer a work or an action, 
it is our very nature. Let a man do his 
best to be good, still his every action will 
inevitably be bad, he commits sin with every 
breath that he draws, Luther held that 



Sin 



67 



original justice was of the essence of man's 
nature, and so by its loss that nature was 
not only corrupted, it was destroyed as far 
as its spiritual forces were concerned. He 
denied that evil is a negation and asserted 
that it was something positive, so that sin 
has become part of man's nature/ As Lu- 
ther himself says: "It is true that I stand 
before you as a sinner, that sin is my na- 
ture, the beginning of my existence, my con- 
ception, not to mention my words, works, 
thoughts, and subsequent life. How should 
I be without sin, when I was made in sin, 
and sin is my very nature and origin?" ^ 

According to Luther, concupiscence is not 
merely the consequence of, and the stim- 
ulus to sin, but it is very sin itself. The 
motions of our sensual appetite, however 
involuntary they may be, are sins in the 
strict and proper sense. Sin remains even 

^ Mausbach, "Catholic Moral Teaching," p. 158. J. 
Verres, "Luther: An Historical Portrait," p. 127. 
2 Mausbach, Op. cit. p. 159. 



68 



Sin 



in the just, but through the instrumentahty 
of faith it is covered over as with a cloak 
by the merits of Christ, so that it is no longer 
imputed to the sinner as long as faith re- 
mains. 

Herein lay for Luther the great value and 
significance of his doctrine of justification 
by faith alone. It thrust good works into 
the background, they became matters of less 
than secondary importance. Works of spe- 
cial merit, of counsel, of supererogation 
were rejected as Papist inventions; any 
works of ours are comparatively matters of 
indifference. But if this is to be held con- 
cerning good works it follows that our bad 
actions are also matters of very small im- 
portance. Provided that we lay hold of 
Christ's merits by faith, and accept the free 
offer of the Father's love through Christ, 
we may and we should utterly disregard our 
own deeds, whether good or bad. The good 
works do not benefit the believer, nor do 
the bad actions harm him. Past bad actions 



Sin 



69 



remain, bad actions continue to be per- 
formed, no human being can help them, 
but, thanks to saving faith, they are all cov- 
ered over by the merits of Christ, and 
washed away in the Saviour's blood. 

Holy Scripture, indeed, teaches that even 
the just man cannot avoid slight venial 
faults — the just man falls seven times a day, 
Luther denied the distinction between mor- 
tal and venial sin, or rather gave the dis- 
tinction a new meaning. For Luther all 
sins in a believer, however enormous they 
might be, were venial ; and in an unbehever 
all sins were mortal. As Harnack says: 
"Luther considered it a harmful error to 
distinguish sins according to the substance 
of the deed done and not according to the 
faith or want of faith in the agent. A be- 
liever commits just as grievous sins as an 
unbeliever, but in the case of the believer 
they are forgiven and not imputed to him, 
while in that of the unbeliever they are 
retained and imputed, and so to a believer 



70 



Sin 



that sin is pardonable which is mortal to an 
unbeliever." ^ 

These Lutheran doctrines have much 
more than a merely historical interest. 
They color the opinions of many non-Cath- 
olic writers on ethics who condemn the 
casuistry of the Catholic Church and pro- 
claim that provided a man's aim is set on 
his ideal he does well not to trouble him- 
self much about the details of a moral life. 

The Calvinistic doctrine is very similar 
and leads to similar results. The ninth 
article of the Church of England is couched 
in general terms, offering a loophole here 
and there for various interpretations, but for 
all that the article is distinctly Lutheran. 
It is as follows: 

"Original sin standeth not in the follow- 
ing of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly 
talk) ; but it is the fault and corruption of 
the nature of every man, that naturally is 
engendered of the offspring of Adam, 

^ Dogmengesch. iii. 887. 



Sin 



71 



whereby man is very far gone from orig- 
inal righteousness, and is of his own nature 
inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth al- 
ways contrary to the spirit, and, therefore, 
in every person born into this world, it de- 
serveth God's wrath and damnation. And 
this infection of nature doth remain, yea, 
in them that are regenerated: whereby the 
lust of the flesh, called in Greek phronema 
sarkos, which some do expound the wisdom, 
some sensuality, some the aff'ection, some 
the desire of the flesh, is not subject to the 
law of God. And although there is no con- 
demnation for them that believe, and are 
baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess that 
concupiscence and lust hath of itself the na- 
ture of sin." 

These doctrines of the reformers contain 
very serious errors in morality according to 
the teaching of the Catholic Church. In 
the Council of Trent she solemnly con- 
demned those doctrines. She vindicated 
for human nature, even after the Fall, the 



72 



Sin 



power, the liberty, to do right or to do 
wrong. Canons 5, 6 and 7 of the sixth Ses- 
sion all treat of this subject. "If any one 
says that man's free will after Adam's sin 
is lost and extinguished, or that it is a mat- 
ter of words only, yea of words without mat- 
ter, in fine a figment introduced into the 
Church by Satan, let him be anathema. 

"If any one says that it is not in man's 
power to do wrong but that God works evil 
even as He does good deeds, not only by 
permitting them but properly and by Him- 
self, so that the betrayal of Judas not less 
than the call of Paul is His works, let him 
be anathema. 

"If any one says that all works that are 
done before justification, in whatever way 
they are done, are really sins, and deserve 
the hatred of God, or that a man sins the 
more grievously the more vehemently he 
strives to dispose himself for grace, let him 
be anathema." 

The teaching of Trent is vouched for by 



Sin 



73 



Scripture and by the common sense of man- 
kind. Luther himself constantly took it for 
granted when he was not arguing against 
it, just as the modern philosopher or evolu- 
tionist does in ordinary life. Catholics 
have constantly appealed to such plain texts 
as that found in the Book of Ecclesiasticus 
(xxxi. 8, 9, 10) : "Blessed is the rich 
man . . . that hath not put his trust in 
money nor in treasures. Who is he, and 
we will praise him ? For he hath done won- 
derful things in his life. Who hath been 
tried thereby and made perfect, he shall 
have glory everlasting. He that could have 
transgressed and hath not transgressed, and 
could do evil things and hath not done 
them." 

Luther's doctrine about concupiscence, 
which seems to be approved by the ninth 
Anglican article, is a doctrine of moral de- 
spair. It is reprobated and condemned by 
the Council of Trent: 

'*This holy Synod acknowledges and feels 



74 



Sin 



that concupiscence remains in them that are 
baptized, which being left for conflict can- 
not harm those who do not consent to it, 
but manfully strive against it by the grace 
of Christ Jesus, since he who strives law- 
fully will be crowned. The holy Synod de- 
clares that the Catholic Church has never 
understood that this concupiscence which 
the Apostle sometimes calls sin is called sin 
because it is properly sin in those that are 
regenerated, but because it is a consequence 
of sin and a stimulus to sin. If any one 
holds the contrary let him be anathema." ^ 
According to Catholic teaching, sin can 
only be committed by the free and deliberate 
consent of the will to what is known to be 
morally wrong. Frequently, the inordi- 
nate motions of the sensual appetite arise 
v/ithout the will having anything to do with 
them. The will neither causes them nor 
yields consent to them. In these circum- 
stances the inordinate motions of the sen- 

• ^ Ses8. V. c. 5. 



Sin 



75 



sual appetite cannot be sins in spite of Lu- 
ther and the Anglican article. 

The Catholic distinction between mortal 
and venial sins is also endorsed by the Coun- 
cil of Trent. 

"For those who are the sons of God love 
Christ, and those who love Him, as He Him- 
self testifies, keep His commandments, 
which they can do with His grace. For al- 
though in this mortal life, however holy and 
just, they may sometimes fall into at least 
slight and daily faults which are also called 
venial sins, not on that account do they 
cease to be just." ^ 

Failure to keep Christ's commandments 
in serious matters deprives the soul of the 
friendship and grace of God, but even the 
just while remaining the friends of God 
sometimes fall into smaller faults. This 
doctrine is plainly contained in numerous 
passages of the Old and New Testament. 
St. Paul in several places gives lists of griev- 

^ Sess. vi. c. 11. 



76 



Sin 



ous sins which exclude those who commit 
them from the kingdom of heaven/ They 
cause spiritual death, as the same Apostle 
phrases it elsewhere. On the other hand, 
we are told that the just man falls seven 
times, that is often even though he remain 
just.^ Every idle word, indeed, must be ac- 
counted for, and in many things we all of- 
fend, yet we may trust that our heavenly 
Father does not deal with us more harshly 
than an earthly father does. An earthly 
father does not treat a petulant child as if it 
had tried to take his life. 

The essence of a Christian life consists in 
the love of God and of our neighbor. But 
this love is not satisfied by mere thoughts 
and sentiments, however lofty. The ideal 
must descend to the details of every day life. 
// you love Me keep My commandments. 
Love must show itself in action, in avoiding 
evil and doing good for God's sake. 

^ 1 Cor. vi. 9; Gal. v. 19; Eph. v. 5, etc. 
^ Prov. xxiv. 16. 



CHAPTER VI 



GRACE 

POOR human nature is in a permanent 
state of moral bankruptcy. It is in- 
capable of meeting its obligations. It sees 
the good but it cannot perform it, it con- 
stantly does what its conscience condemns. 
Experience and revelation alike compel us 
to acknowledge this. But while the Catho- 
lic humbly acknowledges his own weakness 
and sinfulness, yet he knows that through 
the grace of Christ he can overcome sin. 
Luther, on the contrary, not only glories in 
his infirmity, like St. Paul, but boasts of his 
sinfulness.^ He holds that human nature 
is so thoroughly corrupted by the Fall that 
it is incapable of doing anything good. Sin 

^ J. Verres, "Luther : An Historical Portrait," p. 
128. 

77 



78 



Grace 



has become part of its very essence. This 
natural corruption remains even in the just ; 
it is only by faith that they lay hold of the 
merits of Christ, and thereby the justice of 
Christ covers all their sinfulness as with a 
cloak. Because of their faith, God imputes 
to them the merits of Christ and turns His 
eyes away from the innate sinfulness of their 
hearts. The just accept the freely offered 
love of God in Christ Jesus, and this is what 
is called His grace. Luther rejected the 
Cathohc doctrine about grace, and taught 
that it was nothing more than the freely of- 
fered favor of God. Non-Catholics have 
commonly followed this teaching. The 
Council of Trent solemnly anathematized it. 

"If any one shall say that men are justi- 
fied either by the mere imputation of the 
righteousness of Christ, or by the mere for- 
giveness of sins to the exclusion of grace 
and charity, which is poured forth in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost, and inheres in 
them; or even that grace by which we are 



Grace 



79 



justified is only the favor of God; let him 
be anathema." ^ 

The Catechism of the Council of Trent 
explains this canon in the following terms: 

"But grace, as the Council of Trent has 
decreed, is not only that whereby sins are 
forgiven, but is also a divine quality in- 
herent in the soul, and, as it were, a certain 
splendor and light that effaces all the stains 
of our souls and renders the souls them- 
selves brighter and more beautiful. This 
is clearly inferred from the sacred Scrip- 
tures." ' 

The Catholic Church is quite conscious 
of the frailty of poor human nature. She 
knows that if left to itself it cannot hope to 
escape moral ruin, but she teaches that God 
never intended to leave human nature to 
itself. In its first creation He remedied its 
natural weakness by the gift of His grace, 
and after the Fall through the grace of 

Sess. vi. c. 11. 
^ Loc, cit. pt. ii. c. 2, n, 49, 



80 



Grace 



Christ He has restored human nature to 
more than its pristine glory. Let us ill 
merest outline and in non-technical lan- 
guage try to summarize the Catholic doc- 
trine on grace. 

While instructing the Samaritan woman 
at the well of Jacob, Our Lord gives her the 
first notions about the doctrine of grace. 

"If thou didst know the gift of God," He 
said, "and who He is that saith to thee: 
Give Me to drink: thou perhaps wouldst 
have asked of Him, and He would have 
given thee living water. ... He that shall 
drink of the water that I will give him shall 
not thirst forever. But the water that I will 
give him shall become in him a fountain 
of water, springing up into life everlast- 
ing." ' 

Grace, then, is preeminently the gift of 
God, freely bestowed upon us with a view to 
our sanctification and the obtaining of life 
everlasting. This gift of God is no other 

1 John iv. 10 ff. 



Grace 



81 



than the gift of Himself appropriated to the 
Holy Spirit inasmuch as it pertains to the 
work of our sanctification, and by appropri- 
ation the Holy Ghost is the sanctifier. We 
are taught this by numerous passages in 
Holy Scripture. "The charity of God is 
poured forth in our hearts by the Holy 
Ghost, who is given to us," says St. Paul.^ 
The Holy Spirit is so given to us that He 
dwells within us as in His temple. "Know 
you not that you are the temple of God, and 
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" ^ 
"Or know you not that your members are 
the temple of the Holy Ghost, y/ho is in you, 
whom you have from God, and you are not 
your own?" ^ "What agreement hath the 
temple of God with idols ? For you are the 
temple of the living God; as God saith: 
I will dwell in them and walk among them. 
And I will be their God, and they shall be 

^Rom. V. 5. 
2 1 Cor. iii. 16. 
« 1 Cor. vi. 19. 



82 



Grace 



my people." ^ God thus dwelling within 
us, vivifies us, helps us to subdue our fleshly 
appetites, testifies to us that we are the sons 
of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with 
Christ.' 

God is ever}^here, and as He creates all 
things, so He sustains all things and physi- 
cally concurs with the natural activity of all 
things. "In Him we live, move, and have 
our being." By grace in Him we begin to 
live a new and higher life, we begin to move 
and have our being in a higher and super- 
natural order. 

So, then, while God dwells within the 
human soul He is by no means inactive 
there. He always respects the liberty of 
His creature, but nevertheless He is always 
striving to draw the soul into ever closer 
union with Himself in preparation for that 
final union which Holy Scripture calls life 
everlasting. That eternal life consists in 

^ 2 Cor. vi. 16. 
2 Rom. viii. 11 £f. 



Grace 



83 



the knowledge and love of God/ We can 
know God in this life by the natural light of 
reason, we can know Him still better in this 
life by the light of His grace, but in life 
everlasting we shall know Him in a far more 
perfect way by the light of glory. "We see 
now through a glass in a dark manner, but 
then face to face; now I know in part, but 
then I shall know even as I am known." ^ 
"We are now the sons of God, and it hath 
not yet appeared what we shall be. We 
know that when He shall appear, we shall 
be like to Him, because we shall see Him as 
He is." ' 

That final destiny of the human soul is 
something far above its natural desires, ca- 
pacities or needs. It is a supernatural des- 
tiny, a living on familiar, intimate, and the 
closest possible terms of a loving son with a 
most affectionate Father. It has pleased 

^ John xvii. 3. 
2 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 
^ 1 John iii. 2. 



84 



Grace 



God to raise man to that lofty estate, to place 
man by His side in the divine order of being, 
permanently raising him above the merely 
created order. Man must be gradually edu- 
cated so that when the time comes he may 
take his place becomingly in the great fam- 
ily of God. 

While dwelling in the human soul, God 
Himself undertakes the education of His 
child. He does this in the first place by 
what theologians call actual graces. Those 
actual graces consist especially of illumina- 
tions of the mind and movements of the will. 
The mind has to be enlightened by God so 
that it may see and understand and realize 
divine truths, appreciate their beauty, and 
realize their desirableness. The will has to 
be moved by God so that it may actually de- 
sire them. Herein man can do nothing of 
himself; helped by divine grace all that he 
can do is to give his consent and cooperate 
with the action of God. "Not that we are 
sufficient to think anything of ourselves as 



Grace 



85 



of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from 
God." ^ "For it is God who worketh in 
you both to will and to accomplish accord- 
ing to His good will." ^ 

By such illuminations of the mind and 
strength-giving movements of the will God 
enables the loving soul to do what otherwise 
it could not do, to keep God's command- 
ments and to avoid grievous sin. 

Besides these actual graces the Catholic 
Church teaches that God gives sanctifying 
or habitual grace to men. 

"Justification," says the Council of Trent, 
"is not merely the forgiveness of sins, but 
the sanctification and renovation of the 
inner man, by the voluntary acceptance of 
grace and gifts; by which a man instead of 
being unjust becomes just, and instead of 
being an enemy becomes a friend, so that 
he may be an heir according to hope of life 
everlasting. . . . For although no one can 

^ 2 Cor. iii. 5. 
2 Phil. ii. 13. 



86 



Grace 



be just unless the merits of Our Lord Jesus 
Christ are communicated to him, that, how- 
ever, is done in this justification of the 
wicked, while by the merit of the same most 
holy Passion, through the Holy Ghost, the 
charity of God is poured forth in the hearts 
of those who are justified, and inheres in 
them, so that in justification, together with 
the forgiveness of sins, a man at the same 
time receives all these infused virtues, faith, 
hope, and charity, through Jesus Christ in 
whom he is engrafted." ^ 

In the same chapter the Council teaches 
that baptism is the instrumental cause used 
by God in the justification of the wicked. 

By sanctifying grace infused into the soul 
by baptism we are "born again"; "born not 
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
the will of man, but of God." We become 
a "new creature in Christ Jesus." By this 
new birth we are made "partakers of the di- 
vine nature." ^ 

^ Sess. vi. c. 7, 



Grace 



87 



All these Scriptural expressions indicate 
that grace is something more than the mere 
extrinsic favor of God. In adopting man 
for His child by grace and assuring him of 
a father's love, God works wonderful 
changes in the human soul. What was be- 
fore stained by sin becomes clean and pure, 
what was before darkness becomes light. 
What was by nature a little less than the 
angels, is raised by grace in some sort to the 
level of the deity, it becomes "a partaker of 
the divine nature," says St. Peter.^ 

This is the beginning of that spiritual life 
which one day is to leap forth into life ever- 
lasting. Not alone by actual graces does 
God preserve the soul of His child from sin 
and gradually educate it for heaven. There 
is a radical opposition between sanctifying 
grace and sin, as radical as that between 
light and darkness. Mortal sin drives sanc- 
tifying grace from the soul, it is the death of 
the spiritual life. The infusion of grace 

^ 2 Peter i. 4. 



88 



Grace 



washes the soul from the stains of sin, it does 
not merely cover sin, it destroys all traces of 
it. Of its nature too it does not merely 
adorn the soul with a heavenly beauty, it 
makes it fruitful in good works. "Whoso- 
ever is born of God committeth not sin; for 
His seed abideth in him." ^ 

^ 1 John iii. 9. 



THE END 



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LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES. Delamark. net. 0 50 

LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST. Roberts. net. 0 50 

LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL. Ryeman. net. 0 50 
LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE LAKE. Nixon- 

Roulet. net, 0 60 

LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. net, 0 50 

LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. Taggart. 1 25 

LUCKY BOB. Finn. 1 25 

MAD KNIGHT, THE. Schaching. net, 0 50 

MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE'S. Brunowk. net, 0 50 

MAKING OF MORTLAKE. Copus. 1 25 

MAN FROM NOWHERE, THE. Sadlier. 1 25 

MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS. Spalding, S.J. 1 25 

MARY TRACY'S FORTUNE. Sadlier. net, 0 50 

MELOR OF THE SILVER HAND. Bearni. 1 26 

MILLY AVELING. Smith. net. 0 60 

MIRALDA. Johnston. 0 50 

MOSTLY BOYS. Finn. 1 25 

MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. Sadlim. *^et, 0 50 

MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. Barton. net. 0 60 

MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL. Sadlihr. net. 0 60 

NAN NOBODY. Waggaman. ^^t. 0 60 

NED RIEDER. Wehs. net, 0 60 

NEW BOYS AT RIDINGDALE. Bearne. , 1 25 

NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE'S. Brunowb. ^ f'^ 

OLD CHARLMONT'S SEED-BED. Smith. ^ ^0 

OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. Spalding, S.J. \ H 

ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND. Mannix. } 25 

OUR LADY'S LUTENIST. Bearne. „ , n 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Mannix. 0 50 

12 



PAULINE ARCHER. Sadlim. 

PERCY WYNN. Finn. 

PERIL OF DIONYSIO. THE. Mannix. 

PETRONILLA. AND OTHER STORIES. Domm«llt. 

PICKLE AND PEPPER. Doksey. 
PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. Carnot. 
PLAYWATER PLOT, THE. Waggaman. 
POLLY DAY'S ISLAND. Roberts. 

POVERINA. BUCKENHAM. 

QUEEN'S PAGE, THE. Hinkson. 
QUEEN'S PROMISE, THE. Waggaman. 
QUEST OF MARY SELWYN. Clemintia. 
RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. Spalding, S.T. 
RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. Bonesteil. 
RIDINGDALE FLOWER SHOW. Bearnk. 
ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON. Bearki. 
ST. CUTHBERT'S. Copus. 
SANDY JOE, Waggaman. 
SEA-GULLS' ROCK. Sandeau. 
SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS. Nixon-Roulit. 
SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus. 
SHEER PLUCK. Bearne. 

SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK. Spalding, S.J, 
SHIPMATES. Waggaman. 
STRONG-ARM OF AVALON. Waggaman. 
SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. Spalding, S.J. 
SUMMER AT WOODVILLE, A. Sadlier. 
TALISMAN, THE. Sadlier. 
TAMING OF POLLY, THE. Dorsey. 
THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Finn. 
THAT OFFICE BOY. Finn. 

THREE LITTLE GIRLS, AND ESPECIALLY ONE. 
Taggart. 

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Salomb. 

TOM LOSELY: BOY. Copus. 

TOM PLAYFAIR. Finn. 

TOM'S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. 

TOORALLADDY. By Julia C. Walsh. 

TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE. Waggaman. 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN. Taggart. 

TWO LITTLE GIRLS. Mack. 

UNCLE FRANK'S MARY. Clementia. 

UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE. Waggaman, 

VIOLIN MAKER, THE. Smith. 

WAYWARD WINIFRED. Sadlier. 

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. Taggart. 

WITCH OF RIDINGDALE. Bearne. 

YOUNG COLOR GUARD. Bonesteel. 



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25 
50 

0 60 

1 25 
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1 25 
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0 60 

1 25 
1 25 
1 25 

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net, 
net. 



FATHER LASANCE'S PRAYER-BOOKS 



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finer bindings. 
THE YOUNG MAN'S GUIDE, 

and in finer bindings. 
THE CATHOLIC GIRL'S GUIDE. 

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THE NEW MISSAL FOR EVERY DAY. 

edges, $1.75, and in finer bindings. 

13 



Imitation leather, red edges, $1.25, and in 
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MANNA OF THE SOUL. Thin Edition, with the Epistles and 

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cents, and in finer bindings. 
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